AllGov - News - Black Americans Given Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes

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Black Americans Given Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes
Saturday, February 04, 2012

A new academic study of 58,000 federal criminal cases has found significant disparities in sentencing for blacks and whites arrested for the same crimes. The research led to the conclusion that African-Americans’ jail time was almost 60% longer than white sentences.

According to M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teaches criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School, the racial disparities can be explained “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence….Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.” Prosecutors are about twice as likely to impose mandatory minimums on black defendants as on white defendants.

In federal cases, black defendants faced average sentences of 60 months, while the average for white defendants was only 38 months.

The report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.”

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

A Good Reason to Do away with Mandatory Minimums? (by Sonja Starr, Nieman Watchdog)

Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Charging and Its Sentencing Consequences (by M. Marit Rehavi and Sonja B. Starr, University of Michigan Law & Econ, Empirical Legal Studies Center Paper)

Racial Inequalities in Conviction and Sentencing (by David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Comments

o - 5/15/2012 9:11:42 PM
to kjh its not like we forced them to do crack but there is about the same number of blacks as whites that do crack but blacks are beening put in jail longer for the same thing.

boogeymanatyourdoor - 5/10/2012 7:11:48 AM
this goes out to "kjh". first off did you ever hear of margaret sanger(founder of plan parent hood), the queen mother of black abortion. i quote her when she said: on blacks, immigrants and indigents: "...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." margaret sanger, pivot of civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people also another quote from her:on the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities: "more children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control." birth control review, may 1919, p. 12 i could keep quoting her. it's obvious how racist she is. at one point in her career she was invited to speak at a clan rally(forgot the name of the state now, but you can research it) now on to the crack thing. i can't remember the name of the book(the author was killed for his coming out of the book because of his mentioning of wall street and the drug trade)but from what this((white man))wrote in his book, cocaine was brought here during slavery to speed up production on the plantation. now, i heard a lot of bull coming from the mouths of whites in this country and abroad when it comes to the past and africans. they say "it's in the past forget it this is a new day, you have it better here then the blacks in africa" (which is not true at all). first off not all of africa is poverty stricken, just like not all of america is rich!! so far i haven't heard any of these whites mention to the jews: the past is in the past forget about hitler and what he and others of his ilk did to your race of people!! forget the fact that your people were tortured,experimented on and burned in ovens for no apparent reason other than you were jews. most likely you won't even comment my comment.

thomasina - 2/20/2012 4:25:20 PM
good day to all. if i am correct crack is made from cocaine. blacks don't have planes, trains nor ships to bring cocaine into this country. to all the people that don't know the true history of the united states, not his story but the truth, you can start with reading slavery by another name by douglas a. blackmon (who is white). also check out the lawsuits from virgina and north carolina because women can't have children thanks to some doctors if that's what you want to call them. fact: i have two sisters that have no children because of the same reason and i don't live in the south. oh did you ever have anyone spit in your face just because of the color of your skin and for no other reason? i never did drugs or had kids that the government had to take care of. there's good and bad in every race. not just one.

kjh - 2/17/2012 9:45:19 AM
rkb- i know about the history of blacks. so what? every race/gender suffered injustice in the past, it has nothing to do with today. american blacks today have benefited enormously from slavery as they have a much, much better lifestyle in america than they ever would back in africa. also, the rest of your comments are false and absurd. whites didn't create aids or crack or prisons or planned parenthood to get rid of blacks, that is laughable.nobody forces blacks to commit crimes and end up in prison, nobody forces blacks to smoke crack, go to planned parenthood, practice unsafe sex/iv drug use and get aids. these are choices blacks make. whites and others also go to prison, smoke crack, get aids etc. also, blacks were not forcibly sterlized in the 60's-80's. that is a lie. there are millions of blacks who don't do these things and are successful. this is the problem with american blacks as opposed to other races. they refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and will never improve until they do. it would be impossible for whites to force blacks to get aids, smoke crack etc. anyways.

Agree - 2/16/2012 11:41:17 PM
remi is on point! is comments are supported by facts.

RKB - 2/16/2012 10:36:36 AM
@ kjh - please take some time to study the history of blacks in america as well as the history of the transtlantic slave trade. also, dig into the many federal agendas in place to exterminate black people. the prison industrial complex was built for us (they just make room for others). known fact that crack was created for our communities. known fact that aids was created to destroy the black race. known fact, planned parenthood was created and its centers systematically placed in black neighborhoods to decrease our reproduction. known fact that blacks were forced to be sterlized back in the 60's through the 80's. and you said we created our problems....our position in this country is our fault??? please...sometimes i pray for the day white americans receive the exact same treatment that blacks received since slavery. and i hope to be one of the police officers with a dog and batton with permission to walk around slapping the shit out white folks! (just sometimes :-))

kjh - 2/14/2012 5:49:27 PM
the truth isn't racist, just the truth. stop with the "past historical oppression" nonsense, every race/gender/group in every country was oppressed at some point or other in the history, many far worse than blacks ie. the jews. america was not built on the backs of blacks either but of whites. anyways, only thing that matters is today and american blacks today not only have a level playing field, the playing field is tilted massively in their favor due to politically correct polices. most african-americans are not poor but have more money and spending power than blacks anywhere else in the world. i see overfed(at white taxpayer expense) blacks in the so-called "ghetto" with their 200 dollar nike's and gold bling. if it weren't for "rayciss whites" providing inner city blacks with section 8 housing, food stamps and medicaid, they'd starve to death instead of running around in their bling. blacks do per capita, consume far more government benefits. face it, black's problems are their fault. stop having a couple of kids out of wedlock, black fathers raise and support your children instead of acting as sperm donors, stop dropping out of school and committing crimes at much higher rates. today, african-american's problems are absolutely their own fault and to say otherwise hurts blacks and everyone else.

remi - 2/14/2012 3:01:42 PM
are you people paying attention? the study corrects for criminal history. although with the correction the disparity is generally smaller (below 10%) it is still persistent. moreover, this is based on data from recent years 2007-2009, so this is not some ancient problem that we have resolved. there is also plenty of reason to question the claim that blacks commit more crimes than whites: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/are-blacks-a-criminal-rac_b_8398.html it seems more likely that black people are simply far more likely to be hassled by the police and caught for their crimes. exactly what is to be expected from a society steeped in racism. as to the comment by radargeek, if you were in fact geeky enough to check out your own assumptions, you'd see that those "government benefits" are woefully overstated and insufficient. for example, despite the absurd rates of black poverty, white students receive disproportionately more in scholarships to college: http://www.good.is/post/debunking-the-myth-that-minorities-receive-more-college-scholarships/ i really hope that some of the individuals posting racist comments rethink their beliefs. it's 2012, everybody, isn't it time we stopped the bullshit?

Siham Abdellah - 2/14/2012 11:27:47 AM
you are an idiot to believe that the race of someone has nothing to do with their prison sentence. and to kjh, can you not see why there are these programs in place to help people of color? can you not understand that they've been systematically oppressed for so long and the affects aren't just going to vanish overnight. these programs are in place to help them because there are so few opportunities just handed to us. when you're born into poverty you will need all the help you can get. and btw carlie you are a racist piece of shit.

David Dabner - 2/14/2012 11:20:55 AM
the sheer amount of ignorance in these comments is mind boggling... black problems stem from their lifestyles? black people have no one to blame but themselves? have any of you studied the history of the this forsaken country and all its wealth? hell have any of you studied basic physics, for that matter "for every action there's an equal an opposite reaction". understandably so, african american people commit crime at a rate 8-15 times that of their caucasian counterparts, but you all act as if african american's were given the same opportunities as caucasians from the very beginning when that clearly wasn't the case and still isn't. yeah african american's have government aided programs and affirmative action to help them, yet the average income of caucasian families still far exceeds that of africa american families, in comparison. you all talk as if it was a level playing field, when clearly this country's success was born on the backs of african americans you continue to belittle and demean.

carlie - 2/13/2012 5:44:56 PM
blacks commit crimes at a rate of 8-15 times higher than that of whites, depending upon the crime. past criminal history is used to decide sentencing. blacks are far more likely than whites to have a lengthy criminal record, which results in a longer sentence and rightfully so. the american court system today is not racist as asians are imprisoned per capita at a fourth the rate of whites. why? asians have lower crime rates. blacks who commit hate crimes against whites aren't charged with a "hate crime" and blacks commit crimes against whites at a rate of 40 times the reverse. so "people of color", stop commiting so much crime, you have no one to blame but yourselves and without you, america would have much lower crime rates. yes, whites and asians sometimes commit horrible crimes but not nearly the level you do.

kjh - 2/13/2012 5:28:41 PM
whites do not recieve more benefits and advantages over blacks, quite the opposite. blacks can get government aid for college, starting a business, welfare and anything else easier than whites. per capital, blacks get far more food stamps and government aid than whites. blacks are also admitted to colleges over more qualified whites, have affirmative action in jobs etc. if more blacks have less, than it is because they have much higher rates of single parent families, higher rates of out-of-wedlock kids, especially multiple out-of-wedlock kids, more likely to drop out of school or have a criminal record. face it, blacks problems are caused by their lifestyles, not whites.

Vahn - 2/13/2012 4:15:22 PM
the report concludes that sentence disparities “can be almost completely explained by three factors: the original arrest offense, the defendant’s criminal history, and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.” i'll bet money the third factor can be accurately predicted from the first two, in other words there are actually only two factors: - the arrest offense - the criminal history where the hell is the "raysissism"??

Conjunction Junction - 2/11/2012 1:10:38 PM
hope that's a joke, radargeek, because it's completely wrong, otherwise. classic rightwing propaganda, when in fact whites on average receive far more "benefits and job advantages" over minorities than otherwise. the black community is going through a great depression level of unemployment and foreclosures, and while working class and middle class whites are suffering far more than they have in generations, they are still better off than minority communities. e.g., contrary to gingrich's lies, most food stamps are going to needy white families.

Beverly Jones - 2/10/2012 4:47:25 PM
this needs to be address in this election year. president obama passed "the fair sentencing act" and the feds are ignoring it.

Coro Fasho - 2/9/2012 1:30:07 PM
when was this truth not understood by all parties involved? white criminals receive lesser punishments for having higher concentrations of cocaine in powder form than blacks with diluted rocks. the fallacious war on drugs has always been an assault on black and brown individuals. folks need to recognize that the criminals that stole this country never anticipated the byproduct of their abominous slave system to be citizens of this society. it's apparent in how they treat white collar criminals that decimate the lives of millions as opposed to the people of color affecting a few. justice,equality, and fair treatment under the law, and an equal playing field has never been the ideal of the devil. as they bust hell wide open, i pray that the creator of heaven and earth and everything therein, grants the silent beneficiaries, of this oppressive system are allowed a place in hell, not as hot and tormented as the active players.

radargeek - 2/9/2012 11:36:27 AM
with all the gov benefits and job advantages blacks have over whites; it is surprising they have so many criminals.

Lawrence - 2/9/2012 11:29:41 AM
this isn't something that just started it has been going on for decades. you have to understand that there are still small cities and towns that still have a lot of racial prejudice and the judges are biased against african americans.

Christina - 2/8/2012 2:34:38 PM
that is really messed up and the bad thing is nothing is going to be done about it. have they put in the factor maybe their age, or that they are targeting the wrong ones ( little fish) or regardless people are going to do drugs know matter what, and then all this help that is out there is all a lie to get their lives back

Lawanda - 2/8/2012 10:50:15 AM
it's no longer a question of the differences made. my question is, even though there are many, many reports about these differences, what is going to be done about it? my guess is, nothing.

sharon - 2/4/2012 5:25:35 PM
anyone that has sense know that blacks get more time for crime then any other race.how much money was spent on gathering this info,i could have given that information for free